I couldn’t sympathize more with the poor dear about getting the sack, because I noticed Evan Crippen making his way towards me among the Television Tappers.
Everyone, of course, knows Evan Crippen. Occasionally he comes across someone who doesn’t, and he takes on a look of mixed horror and pity, like some broadminded missionary coming across the chaps eating their grandmother. Evan Crippen is one of our top telly interviewers, as much a product of the age as deep-frozen fish and the hydrogen bomb. Those famous programmes of his, you may remember, used to end up with admirals shaking at the knees, famous actors in tears, judges white in the face, and Cabinet ministers carried out on stretchers.
‘Hello, there, Doctor,’ Evan drawled. A smile crossed his thin features, with their well-known expression of a conscientious sanitary inspector on holiday in southern Europe. ‘Did you see my programme last week?’
‘I was away in New York, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh, rotten luck. I believe you know this fellow Sir Lancelot Spratt?’ he asked, coming straight to business.
I nodded.
‘I see from the papers he’s climbing on the delinquency bandwagon. If I could get him and Dame Hilda Parkhouse together on This Evening, it might make quite an interview, don’t you think?’
I felt myself it would be like a couple of mastodons jumping the lights at the crossroads, but I only nodded again.
‘Dame Hilda’s keen, if you can persuade the old boy.’
‘I’ll have a try, if you like,’ I promised half-heartedly.
‘Thanks, Doctor. Must rush off, I’m afraid. Got to look up some dirt on a field-marshal.’
I rushed off, too. I didn’t much care for exposing Sir Lancelot to Evan Crippen and those quiet questions of his, like a good dentist going steadily through a mouthful of teeth. But, I reflected, Dame Hilda was my impending mother-in-law, and better men than Sir Lancelot were nightly airing their views and baring their souls across everybody’s hearthrug. I couldn’t ponder on this more deeply at the time, because I’d reached the door with MR BASIL BEAUCHAMP on it.
A girl’s scream rang through the woodwork, followed by a gasp of, ‘Kill me tomorrow! Let me live tonight.’
I didn’t know quite what to do, but I thought I’d better knock.
‘Come in,’ said Basil,
The actor was reclining on a couch in a pink silk dressing-gown, surrounded by vases of roses and smoking a cigar. In an armchair beside all the sticks of greasepaint and telegrams from his admirers sat Lucy Squiffington.
‘Why, Gaston darling!’ exclaimed Lucy. ‘We meet again!’
‘Ah, dear chappie,’ said Basil, eyeing me like an unfavourable notice in the Sunday papers.
‘Perhaps I intrude?’
‘Not a bit,’ smiled Lucy. ‘Basil was taking me through the death scene in Othello. Isn’t it wonderful, he’s teaching me to act? We’d half-finished Anthony and Cleopatra in the drawing-room before I went off to New York.’
‘Lucy has become utterly passionate about the theatre. Ever since we first met at the Actors’ Orphanage Ball.’
‘And once Daddy gets home, I’m sure I can persuade him to finance Basil’s wonderful new production of Saint Joan.’
‘As a musical,’ added Basil, As far as I remembered Lucy could never persuade him to finance even a second ice cream, but I said nothing.
‘I’m so thrilled, Gaston. Basil says if I stick to my lessons I might even get the big part.’
‘I want someone absolutely sweet and saintlike,’ mentioned Basil. ‘And it’s remarkable how few of our leading ladies are. Just the occasion, I feel, for someone absolutely unknown,’
‘Basil, I–’
‘Let me tell you my ideas for the production, dear chappie.’ Like all actors, Basil rather ignored the cues once talking about himself. ‘I intend to start with myself on the stage – all by myself – and I shall then deliver a speech to myself–’
‘Basil,’ I interrupted firmly. ‘I’m only here for a little advice. But if you like I’ll come back after class.’
‘Advice?’ Basil looked as though I had let down the curtain on him. ‘Some production problem in that grisly little show of yours?’
‘No.’ I glanced at Lucy. ‘It’s rather on the delicate side. Though, as a matter of fact,’ I added, remembering New York, ‘Lucy might be able to help. It’s about a divorce.’
‘Gaston! On the plane you never told me you were married.’
‘It’s for a friend.’
Basil blew a jet of cigar smoke. ‘Never, never, dear chappie, let yourself become involved in the matrimonial affairs of others. It’s much less dangerous to stop a decent cosh fight any day.’
‘I rather promised. And as you’ve recently had a bit of rehearsing in that sort of show–’
‘I think my dear wife just goes down to Las Vegas, where you get them from a slot machine,’ he said doubtfully.
‘I mean a good old-fashioned English divorce?’
Basil absently sniffed a rose. ‘I believe, dear chappie, one makes a start with a firm of private detectives.’
‘My friend rather wishes to avoid detectives. He wants a sort of do-it-yourself divorce.’
‘I don’t blame him,’ Lucy agreed, lighting a cigarette. ‘Private detectives are utterly ghastly.’
‘Unfrocked solicitors’ clerks with no sense of humour who suck peppermints,’ Basil agreed. ‘My dear wife set them on me once.’
‘It’s all perfectly simple,’ said Lucy firmly. ‘You take a girl to the seaside and you’re discovered in a compromising position by the waiter, when he brings up the breakfast next morning.’
‘You mean that’s enough to rev up the machinery of the law?’
‘But of course, dear. Lots of my friends strangled with the bonds of matrimony have tried it. You can’t imagine the new hats I’ve had to buy going to Court. It’s the combination of seaside, waiters, and breakfast,’ Lucy insisted. ‘Then the poor dear judge knows where he is. He’s probably had a perfectly horrid morning judging whether to hand out decrees, with everyone telling the most frightful fibs. But once he hears the old familiar story he perks up as though he was actually sniffing the ozone. Why, I’ve heard it dozens of times – “I brought up the coffee and the kippers,” says the waiter, “and there they were, in a compromising position.” “Decree nisi,” says the judge. It’s as simple as renewing your driving licence.’
‘Personally, I should hate to do anything compromising so early in the morning,’ murmured Basil, ‘particularly before I’d had my kippers.’
‘That’s all very well,’ I pointed out, ‘but it takes two to make a compromise.’
‘Naturally, no chappie likes inflicting all those waiters and kippers on his future wife,’ said Basil briefly, now eyeing me like late-comers in the stalls halfway through the first act.
‘But a divorce without a co-respondent,’ Lucy pointed out, ‘is like a fashionable wedding without a bride.’
‘I mean, my friend hasn’t got a co-respondent. He doesn’t seem to know any women apart from his wife, and I don’t suppose she would do at all. That’s why, old lad,’ I added towards the film star, ‘I wondered if you happened to know some actress who chanced to be out of work at the moment and might take the part?’
Basil raised his eyebrows.
‘All perfectly respectable, of course,’ I went on hastily. ‘My friend would do the compromising with the utmost decorum.’
‘I think,’ said Basil, getting up, ‘this conversation had better be continued outside.’
‘Yes, I think so, too,’ smiled Lucy. ‘Bye-bye, Gaston. Do come round for a drink soon, won’t you? I’d simply love to hear the next act of that divorce.’
‘Thanks Lucy,’ I smiled back. ‘I’ve got to keep a professional eye on old George, haven’t I?’
‘As a matter of fact, dear chappie, I do happen to know a girl who rather specializes in such roles,’ Basil remarked in the corridor.
‘Very decent
of you to rally round, I must say.’
‘Always glad to help you or your friends, naturally.’ Basil paused. ‘How strange that you should know Lucy Squiffington.’
‘Lucy’s an old chum of my childhood.’
‘Yes, and a pretty nasty little beast you must have been, by all accounts.’ Basil laughed. ‘I don’t know how I could go through life myself with the knowledge that I’d once dropped a jellyfish on a lady’s tummy.’
‘We all have our little secrets, don’t we Basil?’ I reminded him.
‘Naturally, dear chappie.’ Basil suddenly looked solemn, like the time the gasman called a week early. ‘I might add that I took every opportunity during that ghastly dress rehearsal to impress Lucy what a sterling fellow you were. I praised you to the skies, absolutely. I knew, of course, that you yourself would never go out of your way to burden Lucy with any of my own little immature pranks. Even the greatest of us have tended to be a trifle irresponsible in our youth.’
‘All right, Basil. I shall never reveal the slugs in your salad days.’
‘Not that Lucy wouldn’t be terribly amused,’ added the actor, looking relieved. ‘We are such very, very close friends. The stage, you know. Such a bond. Now I must go and rehearse,’ he broke off, reaching the studio door. ‘There’s the little girl’s phone number. And I am sure for your part you’ll do me a favour by not trying to hobnob with dear Lucy too much? H’m? I am sure it will be for the best, dear chappie. After all, you are not quite – er, in her class, are you? One must simply face these things.’
‘I have no earthly reason ever to see Lucy again.’
‘Good,’ said Basil. ‘And do remind me, dear chappie, when Saint Joan comes on to let you have a couple of free stalls.’
Basil went in to rehearse his big mystery serial, which brings the entire nation to a standstill from six-thirty to seven on Tuesdays. I hurried back to my own studio, asking myself if it mattered a hoot whether I saw Lucy again in my life. Particularly as our income brackets were as wide apart as the Bank of England and the local slate club. Lucy was merely another female in my social life, I decided, like Connie or Mrs Hildenborough. After all, I told myself, I was a lucky chap. I was still firmly engaged to quite the nicest girl in the whole world.
15
‘The train standing at number fifteen platform,’ announced the loudspeaker, ‘is the two-thirty-five to Whortleton-on-Sea. Please form an orderly queue and do not rush the ticket barrier.’
‘That’s us,’ I said to Miles.
‘Eh? What?’
‘Our train. We join the end of the queue behind the kid with the bucket being sick over the policeman.’
‘This is incredible,’ muttered Miles.
‘For heaven’s sake, man, cheer up! You’re supposed to be ruddy Casanova, not Marley’s ghost.’
‘It’s only that I imagined the business wouldn’t be quite so public as this,’ Miles added miserably. ‘It always seems much simpler in the newspapers.’
My cousin was standing beside me under the clock, in his holiday tweeds and dark glasses, clutching his briefcase. All round us surged the normal activity of Victoria Station on a hot Saturday afternoon in July.
There’s nowhere on earth more wonderful than England in summertime – if the sun happens to shine – with the long evenings, the strawberries and cream, the sweet peas, the lazy rivers, the smell of new-mown grass, and the dozy afternoons ticking softly away with the click of bat on ball. For all the isles of Bermuda, Honolulu, or Tahiti I’ll settle for this sceptred one, even though it is largely uninhabitable between Guy Fawkes Night and the Boat Race. And admittedly when the season does arrive to enjoy the silver sea this precious stone is set in, there’s an awful lot of the happy breed of men to share it with.
‘Sure you still want to go?’ I asked Miles, as somebody walked over his foot.
He gave a determined nod. ‘Decidedly. Besides, I have already bought the tickets.’
We started to push our way across the sea-going current towards platform fifteen.
‘I suppose she’s going to turn up at the hotel?’ muttered Miles. ‘Thank heavens I decided against our making the journey together.’
‘Absolutely guaranteed it. Seems a reliable type, too. Fully experienced.’
‘I should hate to think all this effort completely wasted.’
‘So should I,’ I agreed warmly. ‘Watch out for that porter practising tank tactics with his luggage truck.’
Miles licked his lips. ‘You know, Gaston, it’s – it’s very decent of you to go to all this trouble.’
‘Always ready to help one of the family.’
‘I know we have perhaps had our little differences in the past,’ he conceded, as somebody caught him in the middle with a cricket bat.
‘Clash of cousinly temperaments. Very common. Gave Shakespeare half his plots.’
‘But I’d like to say how much I appreciate your doing all this for me.’
‘No trouble at all,’ I told him. ‘Mind that kid with the yacht. I diagnose him as a case of incipient vomiting, too.’
I hadn’t done all that for Miles, of course. I’d done it for Connie.
‘I’ve brought round Miles’ woolly slippers,’ she had said, when I found her on the mat after that episode of Ambulance Entrance had been safely tele-recorded. ‘He seemed to have forgotten them. And his poor feet do get so cold at night.’
‘I hope you haven’t been waiting long?’ I asked, letting her into the empty flat. ‘I also hope,’ I added, ‘you know Miles is planning to go ahead and help himself to a divorce?’
‘Yes.’ Connie felt for her handkerchief. ‘He sent me a letter. Twenty pages, some of it very, very lovely indeed. Quite poetic.’
‘But dash it, Connie! Surely you’re not going to let this fooling go any further?’
‘I shall not stand in his way, Gaston.’ Connie took on the air of a steadfast martyr offered pen and ink at the stake. ‘I know my duty. Miles has a great future, and young Bartholomew and I are mere encumbrances. How proud I shall be, as I hold up my child in my arms, to catch a glimpse of him riding past in his robes to take his seat as a life peer in the House of Lords.’
I fancied Connie had an enthusiastic view of the procedure, but merely suggested it would be nice for Miles to have her at home to polish his coronet in the evenings.
‘Do you think I should tell young Bartholomew all?’ asked Connie.
‘I fancy that would only confuse the issue,’ I laughed.
But I don’t think she was in the mood to see it.
‘Young Bartholomew and I shall start a new life.’ Connie dabbed her eyes. ‘We shall manage somehow. It will be best for Miles if we spend the rest of our days in exile. In St Moritz or Cannes, or somewhere.’
‘You know Miles has actually asked me to tee up the divorce for him? Not, of course, that I want to be his ruddy caddy in your twosome.’
‘I only ask, Gaston, that you do all in your power to smooth the way for us.’
‘Look – why don’t you nip down to Lincoln’s Inn and see one of those slick lawyer chaps? They extract divorces from the courts like dentists extracting teeth. All perfectly painless, and no complications once the numb feeling has worn off.’
‘I’d much rather you did as Miles wanted, Gaston.’ She laid her head on my shoulder. ‘Please…for my sake.’
‘Oh, all right,’ I said.
I rather absent-mindedly patted her hand.
‘Besides,’ she added, nestling up a bit, ‘Miles was absolutely horrid to a very nice friend of mine in that nightclub. Do you think St Moritz would really be the right place for my exile? Or should I try somewhere like Jamaica or Rio instead?’
Connie had hardly left before Miles appeared, announcing he’d saved up a whole twelve hundred calories for his dinner.
‘Your missus must have dropped your woolly slippers on the mat,’ I told him, putting on my little apron to grill his steak. ‘And you’ll be glad to know I’ve got some
one lined up for you to do your compromising with.’
‘Excellent!’ Miles rubbed his hands. ‘I’ve had hardly a moment to give thought to the matter today, dashing round the docks looking for Mr Odysseus. He seems a most elusive gentleman. I suppose I shall have to pay this compromising woman handsomely? How much will be adequate? Three hundred pounds? Four hundred? Five?’
If I’d known that Miles had five hundred quid lying about I’d have already suggested a bit down for board and lodging. But I merely said I would give her a ring and ask the fees in her private practice.
‘It’ll cost you quite a bit, darling,’ said Dolores, when I called to see her. ‘Plus expenses, of course,’ she added, shifting a pair of Sealyhams which were growling at some Scotties.
‘Naturally.’ I moved uneasily away from a parrot who was eyeing me suspiciously. ‘You will find the gentleman for whom I am acting perfectly reasonable about terms. To the point of generosity.’
‘Of course, I wouldn’t do it for anyone except a friend of Basil Beauchamp’s.’ We edged discreetly among the hamsters. ‘Are you really a friend of Basil’s? No funny business, mind you.’
‘Of course I am,’ I pointed out. ‘I could hardly have found you here otherwise, could I?’
Dolores, who turned out to be a dark, emaciated-looking girl in a mauve overall, worked in the Pet Boutique in Bond Street, ‘Not that I’ve seen Basil for simply ages.’ She sorted out a pile of puppies. ‘Isn’t he a darling man? I met him when I was an extra in the studio, during St George and the Dragon. He looked absolutely divine in a visor.’
‘Quite. Now - er, how about the lolly?’
She sprinkled ants’ eggs into a bowl of goldfish. ‘It depends what you want, dear.’
Doctor In The Swim Page 9
